Space & Spaceflight

Rosetta Update: What It Found, What’s Next

Rosetta’s lander is hibernating on a comet now, waiting for a brighter sun. The mission’s scientists, though, have been hard at work, scrutinizing reams of data and predicting how the lander could wake up. Today, Rosetta’s scientists dropped some new photos and intriguing hints of what’s to come at the American Geophysical Union meeting, In…

SpaceX Plans to Land a Rocket on This Barge

SpaceX is working hard to make its rockets land-able and, by extension, reusable. Now, it plans to try and land its Falcon 9 craft on this barge. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-secret-of-spacexs-falcon-9-reusable-rocket-1593483305 The company has landed on water from altitude before and firm ground in tests. But landing from altitude on a floating platform—what won’t be tethered to anything—presents…

The Staggering Mass of the Craft We’ve Sent Into Space, Visualized

Ever tried to picture how much one rocket weighs compared to another, or how heavy some of the craft orbiting our planet really are? Well this chart explains all. Put together by XKCD’s Randall Munroe, the chart visualizes the changing mass of spacecraft over time, from the first Sputnik launches to the future SLS Block…

10 Gifts to Send a Space Fan Over the Moon

You have a space enthusiast in your family? Lucky you! There are tons of remarkable space gifts and collectible memorabilia out there you can surprise him or her with. The following 10 gift ideas may help you out when you need to choose the perfect present for your space fanboy/girl. Space Launch System (SLS) 1/144…

NASA Spent $349 Million on a Test Tower It May Never Use

Six months ago, NASA finished building a brand new $349 million vacuum test chamber—but it was no occasion for celebration. The space program it was built for was canceled years ago. This huge structure in Mississippi is now more readily seen as a massive symbol of pork. In the Washington Post today, David A. Fahrenthold…

This “GoreSat” Weather Satellite Will Keep an Eye on Solar Winds

When the solar winds blow strong, it plays havoc with electronics here on Earth. We can protect our sensitive electronic infrastructure—power grids, navigation and communication satellites, and such—but only with sufficient warning. And that’s where the new DSCOVR satellite comes in. When the sun ejects a solar flare into space, the high energy particles that…

You Can Discover New Planets with a DSLR 

Wouldn’t it be cool to discover a planet circling a lonely star light years away from Earth? Maybe you’d even get to name it. Actually exploring deep space is hard, but as IEEE Spectrum’s David Schneider points out, detecting exoplanets is pretty simple, simple enough that a basic DSLR and a telephoto lens can do…

This Is What Astronauts Actually See on Reentry

Ever wondered what astronauts see when they return from the International Space Station at the end of their mission, tucked tightly into a Soyuz space capsule? Well, it’s this. In this video, astronaut Mike Hopkins (Expedition 37/38 )—who returned to Earth back in March—shows you. The real fireworks start at 12:40. Oh and just as…

This false-color infrared image of southern Borneo reveals areas of vegetation in red, manmade constructions in white and swamps in blue. Looks closely, and you’ll notice the land divided into neat plots in different shades of red—revealing where different crops are grown across the region. [ESA]

NASA’s ‘All About That Space’ Parody Is Pretty Perfect

Most interns get coffee and do endless photocopying. At NASA, however, the interns make parody videos of pop songs. Personally, I can’t really imagine a better use of tax dollars. The video was made by the Pathway Interns at the Johnson Space Center, notionally to help publicize Orion’s first flight. But let’s be honest, this…

NASA Has Some Beautiful New Maps Of Saturn’s Moons

Back in the 1980s, NASA’s Voyager spacecraft made a brief flyby of Saturn’s moons, providing us with a tantalising glimpse of new worlds. Now, the Cassini mission has finished the job, providing us with high-resolution, color maps of Saturn’s six icy moons. The images aren’t just photos — they actually incorporate data from the ultraviolet…

NASA Orion and Delta IV heavy tribute in brick

This build by Wesley of Orion and the Delta IV heavy is just wonderful. Will we go to an asteroid, back to the Moon or to Mars? The future of Orion is unknown, but if the success of this launch is any indication, we can build it, we can do it. I hope to see…

This Is What the International Space Station Looks Like in Infrared

No, this isn’t a secret extra vehicle from an old Star Wars movie. In fact, it’s the International Space Station viewed in infrared light. The image was taken 70 meters from the ISS as the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle docked with it earlier this year. Obtained using Laser Infrared Imaging Sensors, the images…

Why NASA Put This Spacesuit Through a CT Scanner 

Last year, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano nearly drowned in his own fluids during a harrowing spacewalk-gone-wrong. Now, NASA has teamed with the Houston Methodist Hospital’s research institute to make sure that such a thing never happens again—using a CT scanner. If you don’t recall the crisis, here’s what happened: Parmitano’s emergency stemmed from a clogged…

The Spacecraft That Will Finally Give Us a Close-Up View of Pluto

When the New Horizons spacecraft launched, Pluto was still considered a planet. Now, eight years later, the space probe is finally nearing the end of its 2.9 billion-mile journey to Pluto—and has just roused itself from deep hibernation ahead of its arrival. The New Horizons Spacecraft is the first step of NASA’s $650 million New…

This Is the 2,000,000 MPH Gaseous Vomit of a Galaxy

This isn’t a giant rainbow sperm, but instead an energetic burst of gases being spat out from the center of a galaxy thanks the the immense pressures of stars forming at its core. The observation of galaxy SDSS J0905+57 has been made by a team of scientists from the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Previously it…

A Brief History of Space Travel as Told by the Art That Inspired It

Humanity has been obsessed with exploring the stars for millennia, it just took a little while for us to obtain the means of actually doing so. In his new book, The Art of Space, author Ron Miller explores both how we developed the technology necessary for space travel and how that technology has steadily migrated…

NASA’s most ambitious spacecraft ever is about as smart as your phone

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is being heralded as the saving grace of restless, star-gazing pioneers everywhere. And for good reason! It’s the first real attempt in decades at pushing human space travel to its furthest possible limits. And what feat of engineering is powering this manifestation of mankind’s greatest ambitions? An obsolete processor circa 2002. Of…

Could You Launch Someone Into the Sun With a Big Enough Cannon?

In the spirit of making problems go away, sometimes you want to just launch a particular person/problem into the sun. So—could you? And just how big would the canon need to be? To be launched into the sun, you need to have enough energy to escape Earth’s gravity and enough energy to overcome the Earth’s…

Orion Is a Triumph. Let’s Not Waste It

NASA’s spacecraft Orion just survived its very first test flight. The shiny, new space capsule will one day carry a human crew to Mars or to an asteroid—wait, which is it? Amidst the hype, there’s still an unforgivable confusion about what comes next. The launches of new spacecraft are usually occasions for celebration, and my…